The New York Times announced it will be Assessing the Trade-Offs Between Security and Civil Liberties during the weeks upcoming in The Caucus, the paper’s Politics and Government Blog. Specifically, it will be inviting guest bloggers to weigh in on how three factors – “the desire to stay safe from terrorism, the drive for marketing data and the explosion of computer and communications technology…threaten to alter permanently the balance between security and liberty.”

For those watching the Watch List and No Fly List, DHS’s Office of Inspector General has a new (redacted) report out on the Implementation and Coordination of TSA’s Secure Flight Program. The report includes as Fig. 1 TSA’s “Multilayered Security Approach,” a graphic that manages to be both fascinating and nonsensical in an Alice in Wonderland way. OIG made four recommendations, with TSA concurring on two (regarding overrides of “inhibited boarding passes” and reporting aircraft operator compliance) and rejecting two (regarding prioritization of passenger data and coordination between the federal government and private industry).